I am a big fan of Evernote and used it extensively till today. I have more than 100 ‘notes’ in Evernote that keep me going.. Another 10 notes for quick scribbling in SimpleNote. But Microsoft’s OneNote has changed the game completely. I am super impressed with all the features and flexibility in OneNote and I am switching to it this weekend. SimpleNote is good too but its nowhere in the game as they work with only text and they have insurmountable issues with multi-device sync.

Hope my comparison in detail below helps you make the switch too 🙂 and wish the Microsoft works it out in the gray areas 🙂 o yes they are not perfect.
Please feel free to add/comment/counter if you have something to say.

OneNote

Evernote

❤ You can type anywhere.. Wow.. Its an unending canvas. Really.

🙄

❤ Whatever you type is a ‘block’ that can be moved anywhere.. Wowow.

🙄

❤ Share the notes with anyone so you can collaborate together. .Free.

🙄 This is a pro feature so you have to shed $$

❤ Sections and Pages give you two dimensional flexibility and two layers of categorization.

🙄 Only ‘notes’ that are of course endless but you can’t further classify/seggregate them.

❤ Adding tags/margins to text is superb with lotta options. ‘To Do’ items are never organized so efficiently with dynamic checkboxes etc.

🙄 Only Tagging available but not superly organized.

❤ IFTTT and many other apps integrated. So when I wake up everyday, I can instantly see my sleep patterns in my notes. Its into GDOC till today, but notes are where I live all the time.

😐 Not many but I see IFTTT too now.

😐 ‘Versioning’ not available‘Versions’ available in web app but not yet in native MAC app ( only SimpleNote does it )

Great comparison article, it’s been a long time since I’ve used EverNote but once I used OneNote, I’ve never gone back. A couple of things that might need to be corrected.
1. I believe there is a new plugin that allows you to do some customized tagging in OneNote
2. If by versioning you mean looking for different versions of notes it is available in OneNote and OneNote even has it’s own recycle bin specific to deleted notes! To see page versions, simply right-click on a page that you have taken notes on and select ‘Show Page Versions’. You will see all previous page versions and you can restore them directly from there. To see the OneNote Recycle bin, go to the History ribbon.
I hope that helps you in your journey with OneNote!

Thank you very much David for coming here and ur descriptive feedback.. I did a quick recheck again and updated the post:

1. I couldn’t find any plugin that helps with custom tags.. Neither can I redefine the shortcuts for current ones;
2. I am happy to find ‘Versions’ in the web app.. yey, it really helps.. but not available in the native app on MAC.. Looks like multiple features are yet to be made available for MAC users.

Perhaps of interest to you: Evernote has been integrated with both IFTTT and Zapier (a similar service) for a long time. The functionality offered by these integrations is much greater than anything I seen yet for OneNote. For example, IFTTT lets you add a new item to a checklist in Evernote, append content to an existing note, or make a new note in the notebook of your choice. Zapier lets you interact with Evernote Reminders along with the more standard options. The only thing I have seen with OneNote is just the ability to create a new note.

Also, Evernote tags are customizeable in any of its applications and are consistent across all applications and platforms. In OneNote, customized tags are stored locally and cannot be used in the mobile apps.